North Cowichan - It is all well and good that those that are capable go out and vote. That being said, I ask, does the paper and the citizens of this community know that their most powerful voice and vote is expressed at the till? Stop buying all the crap! You buy the crap, we have a world of crap. Educate yourself as to the ramifications. There is no better way, for example, to discourage destructive behavior than to stop buying into destructive behaviour, behaviour that is destructive for all of us.
If everyone cut back on meat consumption, for the big meat eater maybe cutting back slowly starting with only eating meat two to three times a week, it would make a tremendous impact on meat production and of course lessen CO2 and methane output. We create CO2 housing and feeding the methane producers. It's a vicious circle of pollution. Organics help as well. All herbicides and pesticides are oil based. GMOs were not created to feed the hungry, it was strictly profit motivated and spun through the public relations machine. There's plenty of food, the poor just don't have enough money to buy it.
Our economic picture will also improve if you stop buying the crap. Companies are forced into consumer demand, if you demand. Right now, corporations pretty much demand what they sell you. We have to work around it. That could change if we become wise consumers; think about what you're buying, where it comes from, how it's grown, what it actually is. Everything is at the tip of your fingers on the Internet. Go find it before it goes away.
In visiting Washington state for the first time in over 12 years since immigrating
to Canada, I wasn't surprised, but very disappointed to see the militarization of the state. Soldiers and cops dressed to the nines in some kind of Orwellian nightmare, and Washington is a legal pot state. Authority in such states like Arizona and Nevada fall just short of Nazism. Individuals can be nice, but the overall atmosphere would certainly have inspired the writing genius of Rod Serling of The Twilight Zone. It's coming, better act now. Again, your greatest power is at the till, no doubt. Until we fix things, that's the reality.
So, you now know where you can fix things. You now know it's up to you. We've been told this before. Have things changed? Answer: no. We have only ourselves to blame. The answer is really simple, but we love our crap.
Daniel Ferreira
North Cowichan